


Legacy

by fizzygingr



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Momsoka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzygingr/pseuds/fizzygingr
Summary: She looks at these children, sleeping on the rocky ground, and on a bed in a borrowed room, and against her chest, and she’s so full of love and hurt and fear. She could lose them a thousand different ways; she could lose them the way she lost their father. But for all that the Jedi did wrong, they taught her one thing well: accept what you cannot change, and change what you can. She’ll raise them to be compassionate, to be quick thinkers, to love all and trust few. The rest will be up to them.Or: AU Where Ahsoka raises the twins





	Legacy

They meet, per Ahsoka’s demands, in a darkened shipyard. Obi-Wan’s mind is too weary and chaotic to even worry about how easily he’s been tracked. She calls a meeting in the shadows, telling him that she can feel something deeply, deeply wrong, and she wants to know what it is. She demands the truth, and she’ll settle for nothing less, so he tells her.

“And the babies,” she says, “what’s going to happen to them?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, shaking his head. “We’ll find homes for them, somewhere safe.”

“I can keep them safe.”

“You needn’t have any part in this, Ahsoka,” he replies. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She wants to tell him it wasn’t his fault, either. But she wouldn’t know now, would she?

“I _want_ to keep them safe,” she says. “I want to do right by my Master...as I knew him.”

“You’re too...”

“Young?” she makes a face, and he nods in acknowledgement. They both know that the child she once was has been killed, another casualty of war.

“What will you do?” he asks, “For money?”

“I’ll be a mechanic in the Outer Rim. I know enough about ships to get by.” _I learned from the best_ , she almost says, but it catches in her throat.

He hands her a commlink. “Don’t hesitate, Ahsoka,” he says. “I can’t come with you, but if you need an ally, or a friend…”

“Thank you.”

“Now come with me.” He motions back toward the street. “And may the Force be with us all.”

*

The twins are strong in the Force, she can tell that from the outset. Luke has inherited all of his father’s earnestness, and Leia his determination. It comforts her to see that Anakin is still with her in a way; it worries her to think that everything she loved in him could be twisted into something so horrific. She looks at these children, sleeping on the rocky ground, and on a bed in a borrowed room, and against her chest, and she’s so full of love and hurt and fear. She could lose them a thousand different ways; she could lose them the way she lost their father. But for all that the Jedi did wrong, they taught her one thing well: accept what you cannot change, and change what you can. She’ll raise them to be compassionate, to be quick thinkers, to love all and trust few. The rest will be up to them.

She teaches them to meditate, just as she learned from a young age. And at first, she refuses to teach them to fight. But it’s a rough life, hopping from world to world and staying nowhere for long enough to be known. They’re barely six months old, and Ahsoka is buying food at a market with Leia strapped to the front of her and Luke to the back, when a pickpocket grabs her wallet and runs. Ahsoka almost pities her; she can see that the girl is young and hungry. But she has two babies to take care of, and that leaves her little room for charity. She can hardly run and jump with the twins strapped to her, so she stops the girl with the Force, pins her to a wall, and snatches the wallet from her hand. And then she hides, because she’s heard stories of clones rooting out the last of the Force users. The Jedi are already shrouded in myth thanks to the Empire’s propaganda machine, and soon enough, she figures, that no one will believe a stormtrooper who claims he saw a woman move thing with her mind. But for now, she has to run.

When she’s safely back to where they’ve been staying, an abandoned droid repair shop, she decides that Luke and Leia will grow up knowing how to defend themselves.

*

The twins are three when Leia asks why all the kids she’s met have mommies and daddies and not Aunt Ahsokas. Ahsoka’s had this talk prepared for months. She sits her down with Luke and explains that they have a mommy and a daddy too, people who grew them but couldn’t take care of them. Their mommy worked to make the galaxy kinder, and their daddy fought for the people he loved.

“Are they dead?” Luke asks. (Ahsoka has tried to shield them from death, but it’s a tough things to do these days.)

She decided long ago that she wouldn’t lie to them. “Your mommy died when you were babies,” she said. “Your daddy is alive, but he’s very far away and can’t see you right now.”

“Why not?” asks Luke, clearly intrigued.

“That’s a bantha,” she says, “too big for you to carry on your backs.”

“We’re very strong, Aunt Ahsoka,” Leia says. “I know you are. And when you’re older, you’ll be strong enough to carry it. For now, know that your daddy loved you. And so do I.” She kisses them each on the top of the head.

“I’m glad we have you,” Luke says, and Leia throws her arms around Ahsoka’s neck in agreement, and Ahsoka’s not sure if they’ve inherited their father’s earnestness or if they’re just being kids, but either way she’s happy.

*

They’re four when she hears from her intel network that there’s a settlement of fugitive clones living in the mountains outside of Dakkor City. Whatever they did to the clones to make them start killing off the Jedi, these men managed to override it. Or so her intel tells her; she’s aware that she could be walking into a trap. But finding work is harder than she thought with two little ones in tow, and Obi-Wan was on the other side of the galaxy last she checked, and she needs more allies. (And while she won’t claim it as a reason, it’s a lonely life she’s leading.) So she sends out a careful word that she was a friend of General Skywalker’s, and would like to ask them a favor.

And by what she’s sure is some rare benevolent miracle of the Force, she hears back from Rex.

She agrees to meet him in public, alone. She wants to trust him, oh _Force_ she wants to trust him, but she’s seen too many of her friends become monsters. She tries to suppress the rush of warmth when she senses his familiar Force presence. She has to hold her cards close, for Luke and Leia’s sake if not for her own.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” she asks as she approaches him in the crowded square, the twins staying four paces behind her as they’ve learned to do.

Rex lifts his hood just enough to reveal a scar on the side of his head. “Had my chip removed,” he says, and then smiles, “besides, we both know I couldn’t kill you if I tried.”

She wants to smile back at him, but she’s suddenly nauseous. “A chip,” she repeats.

“What did you think it was?”

“The Force, maybe. Honestly, Rex, I didn’t know. But a chip would have been implanted on Kamino; you were being played the whole time.”

He smiles sadly. “I think we always knew that.”

She embraces him then, briefly so as not to draw attention to them, but tightly.

“I’m glad you’re surviving, Rex.”

“Likewise.”

She motions for the twins to come closer, and takes a deep breath. “Rex,” she says, “I’d like you to meet Luke and Leia Skywalker.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Skywalker?”

“Not here,” she says. “Can we go somewhere safe?”

He leads them away from the crowd, to a speeder he’s parked a few blocks away. It’s not much to look at, but Luke’s eyes widen all the same.

“Do you have your own speeder?” he asked.

“I share it with a couple of my brothers,” says Rex.

“Aunt Ahsoka won’t let us get a speeder, even to share.”

“She’s the only one who can drive it, silly!” Leia interjects.

“For now!” Luke snaps back at her. “But I’ll learn to drive next year when I’m five!”

“Will you now?” asks Rex, clearly amused.

“Yeah, and I’ll be fast!! Aunt Ahsoka says my daddy was fast.”

Rex looks to Ahsoka, not sure what he’s allowed to disclose.

“Rex knew your daddy, Luke,” she says. The twins’ eyes go wide, and they tell stories all the way home.

*

“Darth Vader,” Rex repeats softly. “If someone would have told me that five years ago…”

“I know.” “These days there’s not too much surprises me.”

She nods. “Rex, can you help us? We need a place to stay, just until I can make enough money to get us back on the road.”

He hesitates.

“I know you have your own to take care of, but I can pull my own weight.”

“I know you can, Ahsoka.” He looks off to where the twins are, playing with a couple clones in the corner of the room.

“If it’s too much,” she says, “to have his children around...I understand.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “no, I want to do right by the General. Honor his memory.” She doesn’t judge Rex for talking about him like he’s dead; she does the same herself sometimes, when the truth is too much to bear. “And the men’ll be happy to have some young blood around,” he says with a smile.

“Thank you, Rex,” she says, and throws her arm around his neck.

*

She doesn’t expect to stay longer than a few weeks. But the twins adore the clones, and the clones adore the twins, and every time she talks about leaving Rex begs her to stay. “You’re safer here with a dozen blasters at your side then you’d be on the road,” he says. And he has a point. Not to mention, Luke and Leia can safely practice their Force abilities; the clones actually enjoy being thrown to the ground by tiny Force pushes, and Wink has offered a prize to the first one who can lift him off the ground. (Her money’s on Luke for his sheer raw power.) So she says she’ll stay until she hears word of trouble. But she’s gotten so good at hiding, and Dakkor City is so remote, that it’s a good two years before she catches wind of any trouble at all.

“The Empire suspects that there are Force-sensitives here,” she announces to the clones one night at dinner. “If the twins and I don’t leave soon, we’ll lead them right to your door.”

“Let ‘em come!” Barker says, fierce and determined. “We’ll fight off every one of ‘em!”

Ahsoka is touched, but she firmly refuses. “We’re leaving in 24 hours” she says, “and anyone who wants to come with us is welcome to.”

Rex joins them, along with Barker, and another clone named Brack, the twins’ favorite playmate. Luke and Leia scream and cry when they realize that they’re not going back home. They refuse Ahsoka’s comfort, saying that this is her fault, that if she loved them she’d let them stay. Ahsoka sinks into a chair and weeps softly.

“You made the right call,” says Rex, placing an arm around her shoulder.

“I know,” she says. “But they shouldn’t have to live like this. They deserve a home, Rex. They deserve to be...they deserve to be with their parents, but if they can’t have that…” She sighs. “Rex, maybe I should have let Obi-Wan split them up. They would have been harder to trace, they could have stayed in stable homes and not have to leave the people who loved them.”

Rex squeezes her shoulder. “I can’t say what would have been best, Ahsoka,” he says, “but I know that they’re damn lucky to have you.”

*

The twins grow up on stories about the Clone Wars, about Aunt Ahsoka, and Uncle Rex, Barker and Brack, a man named Master Kenobi (whom they met once, and he seemed terribly sad), and General Skyguy (Rex smiles when he hears the nickname). They hear stories about their mother, too, how she was brilliant and worked for the government.

“You mean for the Empire?” Leia asks. She’s nearly nine, and starting to show an interest in history and governments. “Palpatine was in charge then, right? He’s been in charge forever. Did my mom work for him?”

Ahsoka explains that the government wasn’t always the Empire, that sometimes good governments become bad governments, and sometimes bad ones can become good ones, too. She tells them that the same is true about people. Inside she wonders: if Leia protested the idea that her mother once worked for Palpatine, how will she react when she learns about her father?

Eventually (and far too young, Ahsoka thinks) they learn the history of what happened to the clones, and what happened to the Republic. “Now the Jedi,” Rex tells them, “they have the power to reach into people’s minds, control them. Well, I’ve had my mind reached into, and it’s not something I’d wish on anybody. I need you two to promise you won’t try that.” They do.

Luke is thirteen when he asks her: “Aunt Ahsoka, you know how you say that good people can become bad people?”

She nods, wondering where this is going.

“Is that what happened to my dad?”

A long pause. Ahsoka knows she can’t keep this secret forever. They have a right to know.

“Go get your sister,” she says.

When she hears the truth, Leia cries. “He was a _hero_!” she protests. “He was General Skyguy, and he loved you, and he loved Uncle Rex and he was _good_! What happened to him?”

Luke is quiet, and when he finally speaks up his voice is very serious. “You said that bad people can become good people again,” he says. “Can he?”

She shakes her head sadly. “I don’t think so, Luke.” She doesn’t want to teach these kids to hate Anakin like she has come to hate him. But she doesn’t want them to hold onto a false hope of redeeming him either. Luke starts crying, too. She pulls them into a hug, trying not to show her own tears, and she holds them, one under each arm, until they all three fall asleep.

*

They grow stronger in the Force. Luke makes a lightsaber at fourteen, green and elegant. Leia decides that she doesn’t want to follow that path, that she wants to be a soldier like her uncles were. Ahsoka tells her that’s a fine choice too, that there are many ways to be with the Force.

News spreads about a fledgling rebellion against the Empire. The clones want to join, and Ahsoka does too, but she reminds them that their first priority is keeping Luke and Leia safe.

At sixteen, Luke and Leia announce that they want to join it, too.

“They’re too young,” Brack protests.

“We were nine years old when we started fighting,” Barker quips.

“That’s not the same and you know it. Anyway, how many of us got-”

“Let them speak,” Rex interrupts.

With Luke’s enthusiasm and Leia’s gift for rhetoric, they make a compelling case. Ahsoka doesn’t want to say yes, doesn’t want to risk losing them, but how much have they lost already because of the Empire? They have a right to fight against it, just as Ahsoka does, and just as the clones do.

Ahsoka sighs. The twins look up at her in anticipation, and she sees in them their father, wanting to do right by those he loved, and their mother, hungry for a just world. She sees everything they’ve grown to be, and she couldn’t be prouder or more grateful.

She’s maintained enough contacts over the years to know where to head next. “All right,” she says,” “let’s set course for Dantooine.”


End file.
